This is Richard Reed Pannell. He’s a student at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. On Saturday, he was minding his own business, taking a shower in this house he shares with classmates…

…when an unhinged stranger–a raving leftist who had tracked him down on social networking site Facebook–barged in and attacked him and his roomies after impersonating a military recruiter.

This is the accused assailant, Andrew Stone, a UMW graduate:

After I linked the Fredericksburg Freelance-Star’s sparse account here on Tuesday, Pannell wrote me last night with the bizarre and unnerving details not yet reported (or misreported).

First, take a look at some of the posts from Facebook attributed to Stone (which read like auditions for a spot on John Edwards’ blogging staff). This is one of the Facebook groups credited to Stone and titled, “Republicans are Cowards:”

Here’s a comment credited to Stone, which was left on the Facebook site of a poor woman who was a George Allen supporter:

Here’s a comment Stone apparently left for a friend of Pannell’s, a fellow Republican student who joined Marine Corps officer’s training at Quantico:

Here are comments Stone apparently left on an anti-Israel group at Facebook:

Here’s a lovely picture in the Facebook photo album in Stone’s name:

In addition, UMW’s College Republicans’ president, Andrew Lamar, received the following message three months ago:

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Facebook

Date: Nov 7, 2006 5:01 PM

Subject: Andrew Stone has invited you to join the group “Republicans are Cowards” on Facebook..

To: “Andrew T. Lamar”

Andrew has invited you to join the Facebook group “Republicans are Cowards”.

Andrew says, “Hey cunt-boy. I hope to meet you in real life sometime.”

(If clicking on the link doesn’t work, try copying and pasting it into your browser.)

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

U-n-h-i-n-g-e-d. And this is the tip of the iceberg.

Pannell recounted this weekend’s ordeal for me:

“I was taking a shower a little after 5pm while two of my housemates were cooking dinner. A man (Stone) came to the door asking for Reed Pannell. He was very polite and had some military literature with him so the housemates assumed he was either a recruiter or a friend of mine from class. As they were waiting for me to get out of the shower, Stone came inside, sat down in our living room, and quietly read the paper while he waited. I rushed out of the shower, came down with just a pair of jeans on and shaving cream still on my face.

At this point, Stone politely stood up, shook my hand, and told me that he had found my address on facebook. He asked if I was a College Republican as it said on my account, I told him yes. He then asked me “Oh, so that means you support the war, right?” and I responded with a yes. He then said that since I was for the war, if I was interested in signing up for the army. At this point I was sure he was a recruiter, and I told him that I’d definitely look into it as soon as I graduate (I’m a junior political science/econ major right now at UMW). This is where something changed in his eyes and he started getting aggressive. He took a step towards me and said that I support the war, yet don’t want to fight in it.

At this point my roommate, Matt, stepped into the room and told him he was being disrespectful, and that it was time to leave. I told Matt that I could handle the guy (I’ve gotten into debates like this before). Stone responded to Matt by saying that “I’m not done talking to your roommate, he’s a pussy and can’t back up anything he believes in”. At this point I, not politely, told him to leave our house. He refused, saying he was not done talking with us. He threw the military literature he had at me, which turned out to be United States Air Force literature. He said that I would never make it in the army and that was why he brought over USAF literature (implying he came over in a sinister manner–not only have I never seen/spoken to him before, but what if I had said that I had wanted to join up, right then and there? Oops, take this Air Force literature…).

My roommate Matt pushed Stone’s shoulder towards the door at this point, and the second that happened Stone swung and struck Matt in the side of the head. Both exchanged several punches to the face/body and then I jumped in, throwing them both onto our couch. My other roommate called the police while both Matt and I tried to restrain him on the couch, but he kept hitting us. Both of us were yelling at him to leave, but he kept screaming that he wanted to fight us one on one like men, that we’re “pussies” for not being in Iraq, and that we’re hypocrites. He going crazy. Both of us struck him several times while he was on the couch. We finally dragged him off of the couch and forcibly pushed him out of the door. He then forced his way back into the house, where he struck Matt several more times. We both pushed him outside and went outside with him, where he would not leave our porch, and he continued to strike us both. Matt ended up pushing him over the railing, but fell along with him face first, with Stone holding onto my right arm as he did so.

The police on the phone with my other roommate told us to get inside, and so we did, and locked the door. As we entered my house, we yelled at Stone that the police were coming, and that if he was in the right, he should tell them. Personally, I’m surprised that he stayed–any logical person would flee after assaulting two people at once, unprovoked (the third roommate was not assaulted). The police showed up (4 cruisers) 30 seconds later, and Stone continued to be incredibly disorderly. They got his story, then ours, talked with eachother for 30 seconds and then arrested Stone. They asked if we wished to press charges, we said that we did. He is now out on bail, but he is charged with assault and battery, trespassing, and we have a restraining order against him.

We then hopped on facebook to see this guy’s profile–he is NUTS.

…Later that day we found a list of names on the front porch, complete with addresses, boys and girls, all members of the college Republicans. I was 9th on the list. I contacted a few of the people on the list and only one had received a visit from this guy, and they hadn’t even answered the door because they knew of his affiliation and what he was coming to say. For lack of better words, we were pretty unsuspecting. His arraignment is on March 1st, and our school newspaper is doing a large investigation of his ties to other organizations on campus, etc. For now, we’re all pretty scared about what this guy’ll do now that he’s back on the streets.

And I’m actually pretty scared what this 6’0-6’1, 200+lbs guy would have done if I was alone in the house…”

One obvious lesson is to keep your private home information and personal data off of Facebook. Which kind of defeats the purpose of participating on social networking sites. Unfortunately, moonbattery has made such participation risky.

It’s a jungle out there among the “peace activists” gone wild. Be careful.

And don’t expect any help from the clueless MSM (see last sentence):

It is now.

***

Update: I talked with the Fredericksburg, VA police department. They will not release the police report of the incident. The Freelance-Star article, believe it or not, was based entirely on a brief police summary of the assault. Here it is in its entirety:

900 block Marye St, 2/17 5:30 pm. A resident reported that a male subject came to his door and started to argue with him about his political beliefs. Neither the resident nor his roommates had ever met or had any contact with the subject previously; however the subject had apparently found the resident’s name on a Republican website. The subject was repeatedly asked to leave and refused to do so. All three roommates were struck multiple times by the subject when they attempted to escort him out the door. The subject continued to be aggressive and disorderly even after the officer arrived on the scene. Andrew Stone, 23, of Fredericksburg was arrested and charged with three counts of assault and battery. The magistrate released Stone on his own recognizance and he was additionally ordered to have no further contact with the victims.